Affordable and Easy Ways to Make Your Home Smell Beautiful
Even the cleanest home isn’t immune from odors. Pet odors, cooking odors, even those dirty gym shoes in the laundry room can add up to a bouquet of smells that are less than wholesome. Sprays tend to be short lived and costly over time, while other ways just don’t work. If you want some tips about affordable and easy ways to make your home smell beautiful, read on!
1. Fruit rind freshness: This tip one of the most affordable and easy ways to make your home smell beautiful. It doesn’t just mask odors, it gobbles them up.
Take one half of the citrus fruit of your choice, hollow it out (or, better yet, eat it) and fill the empty rind with some sea salt. You will need to replace both the rinds and the salt every few days, but if you like citrus fruit this will be a snap to keep up with.
2. Boil your way to a great smelling house: Letting a sweet-smelling mixture simmer on the stove is a great way to make your home smell good. The wonderful smelling steam will penetrate every corner of your house, filling it with wonderful smelling goodness.
Place some water in a saucepan, then add your choice of herbs, fruits, cinnamon, or whatever great smelling things you have in your cupboards. Leave it simmer, keeping an eye on it, for an hour to freshen your whole house.
3. Petal your way to great smells: Think that flower season is over? Bring some of those plants inside for a boost of outdoor freshness in your living room.
4. Use clip on air fresheners: Your store’s cleaning aisle will have any number of clip on air fresheners, like those used to clip onto the vents of your car. Pick up a few and clip them on to your vents or fans.
Try to keep the air fresheners the same; if you need a change, change all of them at once. Too many odors, even good ones, will never smell as nice as one uniform smell.
5. Dryer sheets are for more than laundry: Clean dryer sheets can be strategically placed in drawers or closets to keep clothes and linens smelling fresh and clean.
6. Attack odors where they live: Trashcans, garbage disposals, bathrooms and basements are all guilty of making our homes smell musty, moldy, or just plain bad. Attack these areas head on, and your house will immediately smell better.
Garbage disposals can be freshened with a few citrus slices, some baking soda, or even a healthy dollop of dishwashing liquid.
7. Diffuse good smells everywhere: Scented oil diffusers are one of the most effective, affordable and easy ways to make your home smell beautiful.
After the initial purchase of the diffuser and the oils, you simply add water and a drop or two of your favorite scent into the diffuser. The oils are used by the drop, so a little bottle of oil will last a long time.
Reed diffusers are another great option and are even more affordable when you make them yourself using essential oils, a jar, and some thin bamboo pieces.
8. Heated wax melts: This is another cheap way to keep your home smelling beautiful. Scented wax is melted gently and safely over a heat source, usually just a night light bulb. After the initial purchase of the melting lamp, replacement waxes are affordable and can be used again and again. You can even use your creativity and make your own wax melts.
9. Fabric refreshers: Odors have an unpleasant way of getting into material and staying there. Forever. Febreze makes several fabric refreshers that will eliminate odors that are sticking to your couch, drapes, shower curtains, comforters and rugs. Spritzing the cloth in your home will go a long way towards keeping it smelling clean and fresh.
If you feel crafty, you can make your own fabric refresher by diluting some fabric softener or a cleaning product, always being careful that the product won’t stain your fabrics.
10. Air out your home: This is simply the best of all the affordable and easy ways to make your home smell beautiful. Just open a few windows and let the trapped, musty odors out. You will always notice your home smelling a little worse than normal when you have the windows shut tight because of rain, air conditioning or heating. If you can’t leave the windows cracked just a bit, take an hour or so and open them wide to let the fresh air in.
11. Do a quick cleaning: Using a wonderful smelling cleaner is a fantastic way to eliminate odors, so take a few minutes to dust and polish. Dust is an often-overlooked source of odor, so wipe it away.
12. The cotton ball trick: You can stash a few cotton balls just about anywhere and smell the results immediately.
Take your favorite scent, soak some cotton balls in it, and then place them strategically around the house. Get creative; they can be placed between couch cushions, at the bottom of vases, inside a silk floral arrangement, on top of the refrigerator, in the air conditioning vent, or under plants. You can even suck one up the vacuum cleaner to release a fresh smell as you vacuum. Just be sure that the scent source will not stain wood or cloth.
13. Make your own air freshener: What could be any more affordable or easy? Ways to make your home smell beautiful don’t need to be store bought. Some baking soda with essential oils dribbled on it placed in a shallow bowl or dish is the perfect do it yourself air freshener.
14. Scented Wood for the Win: Wood absorbs odors like magic. Purchase some small wood blocks, then toss them in a baggie of scented oils. Let them sit in the oil overnight, and the next morning you have a clever batch of scented blocks to place throughout your home. Put them on a dish, in a jar, or in a bowl; you can even put a thumbtack with string on them to hang them in front of windows. Easy, affordable, and efficient.
15. Pouches of Freshness: This is one of the more clever, affordable and easy ways to make your home smell beautiful. Sachets, or small cloth pouches, can be filled with herbs, cinnamon, cedar chips, lavender, or whatever your favorite scent is, then hung in closets, stashed in drawers, or hidden in the couch cushions.
Special Considerations: Mold and Mildew
If you are dealing with mold and mildew odor, you need to do more than just mask the smell. You must find the source and eliminate it; mold spores can make you ill.
Find the source and spray it with bleach, vinegar, or a commercial mold killer if it cannot be washed in the laundry
Place bowls of these around the room:
- Cat litter
- Baking Soda
- Coffee grounds
- Desiccant packs, such as those found in shoes, or purses. If you have a big problem, head to your hardware store for bigger packages of desiccant.
- Activated charcoal or charcoal briquettes
If you can’t remove the mildew or mold itself, you will have to eliminate the source; throw away any cloth, paper or wood that cannot be saved.
When your home is smelling anything other than wonderful, try any one of these affordable and easy ways. To make your home smell beautiful seldom means more than giving it a jump start of freshness.
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